Every now and then,

I have a moment of true clarity.

The skies,

tortured by winds and

tormented by funnel clouds

which have lingered for days, weeks, months, years –

who can keep track of life’s sorrows in a stretch? –

have kept my mind soggy and my heart drenched,

sodden with mud and flecked with hail.

But

every now and then,

the skin of this world is peeled away,

my cataracts slip,

and I can see

blue and tranquil, cloudless and calm;

and I remember that

I am not alone here,

I am not forsaken,

mine is a road worth travelling.

I am loved.

I am called

and justified

and more than a conqueror.

Every now and then,

I breathe oxygenated hope

and what is more real than my reality

bursts through a hole in the heavens

and infuses me with

courage,

strength,

dignity,

value,

and I get up out of the drenching place

and walk tall and free.

I know that

soon,

I will be living more in the then than now,

more in the healed than the hurt,

more in the living than the dead.

And every now and then,

I see…